Speaker
Ellis
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
The phrase 'in a pickle' was popularised by Shakespeare in The Tempest, where it referred to being so drunk one's body would be preserved like a pickle.
Pickle, the startup that promised binocular full-color AR glasses with a memory-based OS for under $1,000, has cancelled its first preorder batch and refunded deposits after missing its end-of-June deadline. The crew predicted this in January when they argued the live demos were probably fake.
Google's ability to identify a song you hum or mumble is one of those ambient computing features that quietly became indispensable. It replaced two competing apps — Shazam and SoundHound — and is now so seamlessly built into Android that Pixel phones can identify playing music without you even asking.
Meta is pushing a mandatory software update to block the exploit where users physically drilled out the recording-indicator LED on Meta Glasses to record covertly without any warning light. The glasses couldn't detect the tampering because current was still flowing through the circuit even with no LED present.
The Nothing Phone 4b was originally designed as the CMF Phone 3 Pro, but RAM price inflation made it impossible to sell at the CMF price point. So Nothing rebranded it — giving birth to the new B-series and angering the subreddit that expected flagship-level ambition.
CPU benchmarks from Marques's Nothing Phone 4b review revealed that Google's Tensor G2 — found in recent Pixel phones — performs at roughly the same level as the budget Snapdragon 6 Gen 4, which itself matches the CPU score of the OnePlus 7 Pro from 2019.
The Nothing Ear 3a costs $99, matches the original Ear A on price, and earns Andrew's top recommendation for non-iPhone users looking for quality wireless earbuds. Available in white, black, yellow, and new pink colorways, it also adds a novel Audio Snapshot feature for recording calls and media.
Google confirmed its Pixel 11 launch event for August 12, showing the familiar pill-shaped camera visor in its teaser. Rumours of a 'Pixel Glow' model with a luminous visor persist, but the crew is skeptical — if it were real, Google would almost certainly be teasing the glow itself.
Meta's new Muse image generation model is deeply embedded in Instagram and allows anyone to remix other users' photos and likenesses by default. It's opt-out only, the AI watermark is invisible, and the detection tool is a separate web upload — meaning most people will never know their likeness is being used.
The more Google services are used on iPhones, the more leverage Apple gains through Siri. But Google's reported pivot away from in-app ad revenue as its primary driver — according to former Apple Shortcuts team member Matthew Castanelli — may mean that a better user experience in Google's iOS apps is now more valuable than keeping users inside the app.
The phrase 'in a pickle' traces back to Shakespeare's The Tempest, where Trinculo uses it to describe being so drunk that his body would be preserved from fly-infestation. The original Shakespearean line is arguably better than the modern idiom.
Andrew floats the idea of tier-listing phone gimmicks — features that seemed like marketing stunts at launch but became genuinely useful over time. Instant candidates include the Pixel's ambient music detection, Samsung's privacy screen, and the LG Soli radar and vein ID sensors, which land firmly in F-tier.
David noted that for several years, each new Pixel launch brought a meaningfully new ambient computing feature that quietly became part of daily life. That era has ended, and no competitor has replaced it — a loss that mostly went unmourned because it happened gradually.
iOS 27 introduces two new developer tools — entity schemas (index cards that tell Siri what type of content something is) and intent schemas (a list of actions Siri is permitted to take inside an app). Until the official fall release, Apple's Xcode beta doesn't allow developers to ship these capabilities, meaning every Siri demo and review right now only shows Apple's own apps working. Third-party support, including from Google, is the make-or-break variable.
Samsung's Unpacked invitation confirms a new foldable form factor with a different aspect ratio, almost certainly a wider 'passport-style' device. Leaked European pricing puts the Z Fold 8 at ~€1,999 and the Z Fold 8 Ultra at ~€2,199, with the key differences expected to be camera count, battery size, and possibly display technology.
Twitter launched an in-app vertical video editor with text overlays, auto-captions, and green screen effects — but only on iOS. The real problem is that stolen TikTok content dominates Twitter video, and giving people a native editor doesn't solve that. Marques argues penalizing stolen content by barring it from monetization is the only lever that would actually work.
Analysis
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- Education 50%
- Technology 50%
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